TALLAHASSEE -- Two central Florida senators have asked the Supreme Court to block Gov. Rick Scott from dashing plans for a high speed rail project in central Florida by rejecting billions of dollars from the Obama administration.

"I think sending $2.4 billion to another state would be a colossal mistake," said Sen. Thad Altman, R-Viera, one of two senators, one from each party, who filed the petition before the Florida high court Tuesday. The other senator was Arthenia Joyner, D-Tampa.

TALLAHASSEE -- A majority of Florida voters do not want to abandon Everglades restoration efforts and also aren't so keen on Gov. Rick Scott's plans to scale back state growth management efforts, according to a poll released Monday by an environmental group.

About 65 percent of people surveyed in the poll commissioned by the Everglades Foundation said "restoring the Everglades" was an extremely or very important issue to them personally.

State teacher of the year: If passed, she'd consider quitting teaching

TALLAHASSEE -- Key committees in both legislative chambers gave yes votes Thursday to a proposal to partially base teacher salaries on their students' test scores, a proposal shot down last year after teachers around the state protested that the merit pay system would penalize them.

TALLAHASSEE -- Emergency room doctors, psychiatrists and pediatricians should not be able to ask a patient whether he or she owns a gun, a panel of Florida lawmakers said Tuesday, giving the OK to a proposal that pits two of the state's most politically powerful lobbying interests -- the National Rifle Association and the Florida Medical Association -- against each other.

TALLAHASSEE -- Florida's high court told lawmakers Thursday the state's judicial system needs 80 more judges to meet the demands placed on courthouses with foreclosure cases still crowding dockets and employee layoffs creating a backlog of work.

Yet, with a $3.6 billion budget shortfall for the coming fiscal year, lawmakers are looking to slash budgets for most state agencies, something that Supreme Court Chief Justice Charles Canady acknowledged in a written opinion even as he asked lawmakers to consider pumping a few more dollars into the third branch of government.

TALLAHASSEE -- As Gov. Rick Scott backs away for now from a push for an expanded school voucher program, former Gov. Jeb Bush's education foundation has begun quietly circulating draft legislation that may serve as the Legislature's template to massively expand the number of charter schools throughout the state.

TALLAHASSEE -- A leading Senate Republican has filed a bill that could strip unions of some of their political strength, barring payroll deduction for union dues and prohibiting dues from being used for political activity without written consent.

TALLAHASSEE -- The Senate's key player in the movement to reform teacher pay said Friday that there are still several major issues that the Legislature needs to resolve before pushing forward, including how it will fund merit pay and how teachers of special needs children will be evaluated.

"I think this is a complex piece of legislation and sometimes it's not made in a year," said state Sen. Steve Wise, R-Jacksonville, the chair of the Senate PreK-12 Education Committee.

TALLAHASSEE -- Republican lawmakers, still stung by the Florida Supreme Court's rebuke of three constitutional amendments, continued on Wednesday a long running accusation that the court crafts state policy, usurping the Legislature's policy-making role.

TALLAHASSEE -- Teacher layoffs. Few if any electives. School supplies that only last a school a few months.

Those are all scenarios that lawmakers are trying to avoid as they craft a budget for the state's public schools while Florida faces a $3.6 billion shortfall and the possibility that state programs already cut to the bone will be cut even further. All the "low hanging fruit" in previous budgets was wiped out over the past few years as the downturn in the economy caused the state --and the public school system -- immense budget pain.